LOCKDOWN PROGRAMME VIDEOART WWW.HAUSAMWALDSEE.DE

3 February – 31 March 2021

Curated by Katja Blomberg und Olaf Stüber. A cooperation between Haus am Waldsee and Videoart at Midnight

Note: Every film is shown for one week respectively.

PROGRAMME

FROM 3.2.2021: OMER FAST

Omer Fast, The Invisible Hand, 2018, VR-Film auf HD adaptiert, 11:30 Min, produziert vom Guangdong Times Museum

Synopsis: “The Invisible Hand” is a film based on a Jewish fairy tale. It tells the eerie past of a family from the point of view of a girl. Set in the People’s Republic of China, the story begins with the father, as a child, discovering a ghostly finger on the forest floor, apparently trying to reach a nearby ring. Fearing that the ghost would haunt him if he took the ring, the boy puts the ring on the finger and runs away. From then on, the family regularly finds banknotes on their doorstep, not knowing who the mysterious benefactor is, and achieves wealth. But as is often the case in life, gifts are not for free….

CV: Omer Fast (*1972 in Jerusalem) is an Israeli video artist and film director. His work explores the construction of narratives, particularly how stories change when told from different perspectives. His films have been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions. He has achieved international success with participations at the 54th Venice Biennale, 2011 and dOCUMENTA 13, 2012, among others. Omer Fast lives and works in Berlin.

FROM 10.2.2021: ISABELL HEIMERDINGER

Isabell Heimerdinger, Hana Ikebana, 2014, 3:55 Min.

Synopsis: The superimposition of a dense visual layer, a kind of floral still life, with the initially enigmatic dialogue between a woman whose hands literally move the image and a man preparing tea in the background. Staying on one frame, "Hana Ikebana" takes us around the globe by means of a temperature guessing game.

CV: Isabell Heimerdinger (b. 1963 in Stuttgart, Germany) lives and works in Berlin and Rome. 1991 graduated from the Master Class at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf; 1995 MFA at California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, USA.

FROM 17.2.2021: ANRI SALA

Anri Sala, If and Only If, 2018, Two-channel HD video and discrete 4.0 surround sound installation, color, 9:47 Min, Courtesy: Marian Goodman Gallery, Galerie Chantal Crousel

Synopsis: A garden snail travels the full length of a viola bow, gradually moving across it, yet disrupting the delicate balance on which the maestro’s playing relies. The snail’s pace imposes itself on the performance, prompting the viola player to make adjustments for, and compose with, this evolving situation. When the snail slows down, hesitating to move forward, the violist encourages it to carry on. Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola is thus subverted through the tactile interaction between the musician and the snail, its duration revised to almost double its usual time. The Elegy elongates into a journey that becomes a tangible part of its musical rearrangement.

CV: Anri Sala (b. 1974 in Tirana, Albania) lives and works in Berlin. He has exhibited internationally for many years, with solo shows at Haus der Kunst, Munich (2014); the 55th Venice Biennale (2013); the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2012); the Serpentine Gallery, London (2011); the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (2009); the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami (2008); and the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan (2005); among other venues.

FROM 24.2.2021: JULIAN ROSEFELDT

Julian Rosefeldt, Deep Gold, 2013/2014, 1-channel film B/w, sound, Shot on HD, Converted to HD-SR and transferred onto a hard disk player, 18:12 min

Synopsis: Deep Gold is part of the anthology film The Scorpion’s Sting (2013/2014), that was initiated by the artist-duo M+M. Six artists or artist collectives were invited to work on Luis Buñuel’s groundbreaking and at the time scandalous film L’Âge d’Or (1930). Based on the original episodes, Tobias Zielony, Chicks On Speed, M+M, Keren Cytter, Julian Rosefeldt and John Bock each reinterpreted one of the six filmic sequences.

Rosefeldt’s part, the black-and-white film Deep Gold, recalls a grotesque version of the ‘Golden Age’. It functions as a fictional insert in Buñuel’s original movie, in which the two protagonists, played by Lya Lys and Gaston Modot, try to fulfil their lust for each other, but are constantly separated or disturbed by various obstacles.

CV: Julian Rosefeldt (b. 1965 in Munich, Germany) studied architecture in Munich and Barcelona (MA 1994). 2009/2010 he had a guest professorship at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, faculty of media art. Since 2010 he is member of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, department of film and media art, Munich. Since 2011 he has a professorship for digital and time-based media at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich. Julian Rosefeldt lives and works in Berlin.

FROM 3.3.2021: ANTJE MAJEWSKI

Antje Majewski & Ginette Daleu, Ancêtres: Rencontres et Dialogues Inédits, 2018 4K Video, color, sound, single channel projection, 7:35 min,

Synopsis: A source of clear water. A woman covers her face, her arms in the mud, then cleanses herself. She is concentrated on listening to the voices of all around her. What is it that is talking to her, that she is talking to?

She walks of towards the gigantic stones of Fovu, a sacred place in the grasslands of Cameroon. Following her, listening carefully, we might also find something in ourselves. Ginette Daleu is a Cameroonian artist. She studied at the artistic institute of Mbalmayo. Ginette Daleu sews, sculpts, sticks, paints, dances, goes from abstract to figurative. She spent nights painting the NDOP (traditional abstract signs of the Bamileke). We are greeted by the masks of the secret society Ku ngang, than plunged into the urban chaos, the monster of urbanity pictured in her paintings.

CV: Antje Majewski (b. 1968 in Marl, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. From 1986 to 19992 she studied art history, history and philosophy in Cologne, Florence and Berlin. Majewski works with painting, video, and performance, often in collaborative contexts. Her works are based on anthropological questions, which she refers to concrete cultural and historical situations.

FROM 10.3.2021: ERIK SCHMIDT

Erik Schmidt, Cut/Uncut, 2015, 11:58 Min.

Synopsis: Erik Schmidt created the film Cut/Uncut during a stay in Tokyo in 2015. Clad in a loose-fitting business suit, the artist strolls, seemingly aimlessly, through the metropolis, plunging into the crowds, performing everyday rituals such as eating in a fast-food restaurant or visiting a gaming arcade. Yet despite his rapprochement to the new environment and culture, moments of alienation and a sense of being different arise again and again–fracture points where his own cultural identity becomes visible.

Approximately midway through the film, the artist’s role shifts once more: during a ceremony in a traditional Japanese interior, Schmidt, his face completely impassive, calmly cuts through his clothing until all that remains is a kind of open, rather Japanese-style garment. As a symbolic act, this unravelling of the suit is reminiscent of shedding skin. The final transformation occurs at the end of the film when the artist casts off his remaining clothes and walks into the sea.

CV: Erik Schmidt (b. 1968 in Herford, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. He has had numerous gallery and institutional exhibitions, including at the Marta Herford (2007) and at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg (2011). His films were shown in festivals such as Videonale.11, Kunstmuseum Bonn, German (2007) and National Museum of Fine Art, Taichung, Taiwan (2011)

FROM 17.3.2021: STEFAN PANHANS

Stefan Panhans, Freeroam À Rebours, Mod#I.1, 2016, 4K, 16:10Min.

Synopsis: Freeroam À Rebours, Mod#I.1 takes as its point of departure various shortcomings in the behavior of videogame avatars controlled by human players. These ›failure scenarios‹ are transposed onto the bodies of real performers, and recreated in the medium of film. Such ›failed behaviors‹ by game avatars – including displacement activities, idling behaviors, repeated failures to perform an action, the imperfect approximations of human movements and gestures – are generally considered to be the result of inadequacies and inability, especially in a society shaped by the pressures of functionality, economic imperatives and (self-)optimization. At the interface between experimental film, videoclip, performance and contemporary dance, Panhans’ film reworks these ›mistakes‹.

CV: Stefan Panhans (b. 1967 born in Hattingen, Germany). He studied communication design at the Merz Akademie, Stuttgart and fine arts at HfBK, Hamburg. Panhans lives and works in Hamburg, Berlin and elsewhere.

FROM 24.3.2021: FISCHER & EL SANI

Fischer & el Sani, Snow Division, 2010, HD, colour, stereo, 8:30 min.

Synopsis: Snow Division is a project about a temporary sculpture, made by snow, in February 2010 in Sapporo, Japan, just to be watched for a few days by the public. A division of the Army of Japan is carrying fresh snow carefully from the mountains in an 2 hour drive back to the city center, covered by a white sheet, to protect the valuable good, arriving at the city center, unloading the snow and start sculpting huge endangered animals, that might disappear soon, like the snow, that will melt, if we don't take care about the eco system, which is a fragile system as well. For us, the interesting part is not only to see this temporary sculpture being created, but especially, that it is carried out by the national peace keeping troop of Hokkaido. All men are dressed in a camouflage uniform, and this makes the sculpting look like a staged choreography, an abstract performance.

CV: Nina Fischer (b. 1965 in Emden, Germany) and Maroan el Sani (b. 1966 in Duisburg, Germany) are artists who have collaborated on film and photography projects since 1993 that involve abandoned architectural projects to which they introduce actors who animate new stories for these politically fraught loci. As a duo, they have participated in numerous exhibitions, including the Gwangju biennales in Korea in 1995 and 2002, the Berlin Biennale of 1998, the 1999 Liverpool Biennale, Manifesta IV in Frankfurt, 2002 and in the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media in Japan, 2005. Fischer and el Sani live and work in Berlin.